If NJ REALLY wants to fix teacher shortage, do this (Opinion)

There has been a teacher shortage for some time now in New Jersey. Like many labor shortages it was made even worse by the pandemic, but it started before that.

The Legislature is busy trying to figure out what would help. In their latest move, the State Senate overwhelmingly approved a bipartisan bill that allows three years for schools to hire teachers who live out of state, something currently not approved with residency requirements.

Teresa Ruiz, Senate majority leader and a main sponsor of the legislation, recently said:

While we have enacted various measures to try and address it, it is clear more needs to be done to ensure our schools have adequate staff to meet the needs of our students. By temporarily removing the residency requirement we can see how it helps to mitigate shortages around the state and determine how best to move forward.

Super. Great. You care. But do you really want to end the teacher shortage?

I know a lot of teachers. Used to be married to one. That led to becoming friends and acquaintances with many teachers of many types from many districts. Here's what the politicians don't get.

It's not the pay. While good teachers are not paid enough and deserve more, no one went into the profession with dollar signs in mind.

It's that in district after district there are too many administrators who do not support their teachers nearly enough. First of all, there are too many administrators. Period. Fat salaries for too many 'chiefs' in far too many school districts that need to be merged.

There is an animosity many administrations have for the faculty and it's taken on an ill-cooperative us v them mentality. Also, teachers aren't allowed to be teachers anymore.

Short-sighted administration and the state Department of Education has tried to put the art of teaching in a chokehold by establishing such rigid curriculum standards that it's not only a matter of what teachers must teach but exactly how they teach it.

I have known of districts where teachers are literally expected to follow a script, say A then say B then say C, and God help them if they are caught deviating from that. Very often the 'scripted' curriculum is ineffective because the higher-ups either never actually taught or long since forgot how.

I've heard of many situations where language arts teachers are no longer allowed to assign whole books for students to read. (Because it's "too much" for 9th graders to read a whole book.) Only out-of-context excerpts.

Are you kidding me? A love for reading is supposed to be instilled in children by allowing them to avoid much reading? By handing them an excerpt with characters they haven't been lured into caring about by reading the book from the beginning? It's one of many recipes for failure.

Teachers, the good ones, are frustrated. They're leaving. Veteran teachers who have had it and are just waiting for retirement are telling their kids and others who used to follow in their footsteps not to.

Far too much has been put on the backs of teachers. On top of core subjects that matter teachers are now supposed to teach things parents should. Like having empathy for others. Why honesty is important. It's called "character education."

Let's not forget about the trouble a teacher gets in in these woke times should they accidentally call a student by the wrong pronoun because the student is gender-fluid and chose that day to feel like a boy and not a girl.

These are just a few of many examples.

There's a teacher shortage because teachers are not being respected by the state and by their own administration. Point is, those in charge have largely killed the art of teaching and thus killed the desire to go into the field. At this rate, you'll have a soulless AI bot teaching your kids.

And reaching none of them.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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